Falling
by pacejunkie
Summary: A character study challenge ficlet. Charlie on Oceanic Flight 815 as the plane went down. Angst.


Title: Falling (Charlie)

Rating: K+

Summary: A character study challenge ficlet. Charlie on Oceanic Flight 815 as the plane went down. Angst.  
Warnings: none  
Status of Fic: Completed. One-off  
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, nor do I own any rights to the television show "Lost". They were created by JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof and they belong to them, Touchstone, and ABC.

"Open the door now, Sir!" the flight attendant demanded.

_Not until I've had my sodding fix. _Charlie sniffed the powder in his hand and the panic went up his nostrils with the heroin. Then it was washed clean away. _Oh._ That familiar feeling. _Ohh._ Orgasmic was putting it mildly. His reflection barely registered in the mirror, which was a blessing, as it spared him the sight of the haggard mess of an addict he had become. He was in an airplane lavatory, but he was the only one on board, the only one left in the world. Warm body, gently vibrating, keeping rhythm to a slowed heartbeat. Relax. _Ignore them and they'll go away,_ like the nausea and the sweating shakes that told him it was time to do this.

The banging didn't stop. They wanted in. Charlie quickly came to his senses out of sheer self-preservation. _Damn, what a buzz kill. Better luck next time, if there is one._ He knew what he had to do although it went against every fibre of his being to do it.

Charlie stood over the commode like an altar holding the baggie to his forehead, eyes closed as if in prayer. In fact, he did utter a prayer. _God save me._ He didn't have time to wonder whether God would bother to save a junkie, or even what he was asking to be saved from. All he knew was that the panic was returning, the fear of being caught, and the fear of prison. _Prison._ He dropped the bag and it hit the aluminum basin with a thunk, the weight of the world. _This is it._ Charlie reached for the lever with a hand already shaking again despite the fix that still coursed through him. The heroin surprisingly did little for his fear. If he could have done he would've taken another hit.

Then his back slammed into the ceiling of the lavatory. _The bloody ceiling! What the hell just happened?_ Before he could dispose of his contraband he had been torn from the floor as if by an angry giant and thrown straight up. He fell back down and had no time to register the sensation of the pain in his back. All he knew was he had to get out of there.

There was panic. Charlie held onto the countertop of the first-class bar and pulled himself along to the aisle that led back to the relative safety of the seats. He heard screams and the sound of engines wheezing, gasping for breath. The plane was dying. The cabin bucked and rolled. Luggage fell from the overhead storage bins, littering the floor, but passengers no longer had any regard for their personal effects.

People were grabbing for oxygen masks suspended from the ceiling. Charlie recognized them from all of those demonstrations the flight attendants did, the ones he never paid much attention to because like most people, he never thought he'd actually see one in action. His heart began to race, fighting against the unnatural restraints put upon it by his drug.

The plane pitched forward and Charlie was on the floor, in the direct path of a beverage cart with a mind of its own. It flew at him and Charlie dodged it to the left, a shower of napkins and swizzle sticks raining down on his head. He had to get to his seat. He didn't know why he thought he would be safer in a seat; he just felt that that was what you were supposed to do in the event your plane starts falling out of the sky.

The plane's sickening forward pitch forced him to crawl his way up the aisle. He pulled himself along like a rock climber, amid the screams and panic of the other passengers who were all hanging from a cliff side just as he was, begging for mercy, for rescue, for eternal absolution. When he reached the first available seat he threw himself in, buckled up with trembling hands and grabbed for the oxygen. The air felt cold and had a slightly chemical smell that mingled with the plastic of the mask. He started to sweat underneath it and he tasted his own breath.

The whirring sounds of the engines grew louder, struggling in vain to achieve their intended purpose. All of the sounds around him combined to form a cacophony of confusion, a symphony of death. It was as if the very plane was panicking too, a thought that did little to allay Charlie's fear. Something had to be in control. He knew he would cease to exist in a world without anything on anyone in control. With a white-knuckled grip on the armrests and eyes lifted upward Charlie prepared himself to be judged. _God save me. _


End file.
